This application is based upon and claims priority of Japanese Patent Applications No. 11-256548 filed on Sep. 10, 1999, and No. 2000-105973 filed on Apr. 7, 2000, the contents being incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital camera, and more specifically to a digital camera that is capable of embedding an electronic watermark into electronic image data of the digital camera.
2. Description of Related Art
Many publishers and newspaper companies or the like post image data taken by a digital camera on their home pages on the Internet. Since the image data on home pages is electronic image data, it is easy to copy it from the home pages. The image data on home pages is apt to be used or sold without approval of image data's owner, such as a publisher, a newspaper company, or a photographer. Accordingly, publishers and newspaper companies embed electronic watermarks into the electronic image data in order to check whether the image data on their home pages has been used without publisher's or newspaper company's approval.
A technology that embeds an electronic watermark into electronic image data is disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 10-164349, and a digital camera that embeds the electronic watermark into the image data is disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 10-248046.
A photographer sometimes contracts a plurality of publishers and newspaper companies. The photographer brings the image data directly to the publishers and newspaper companies or sends the image data to them via a telephone line or the Internet. Since each publisher or newspaper company uses its own embedding program and authentication key with respect to the electronic watermark, it is necessary to embed an unique electronic watermark data corresponding to each publisher or newspaper company. Furthermore, a plurality of photographers sometimes share one digital camera. In this case, it is necessary for each photographer to use its own embedding program and authentication key different from others.
Furthermore, the setting operation of the digital camera for the purpose of embedding the electronic watermark into the digital image is apt to cause a photographer to loose a shutter chance.
Furthermore, each digital camera maker sometimes adopts an original format for storing image data, such as a raw image data storing format. As to the raw image data storing, it is sometimes impossible to embed the electronic watermark into the raw image data using a normal embedding program, although it is possible to embed the electronic watermark into JPEG compression image data or non-compression image data (such as a bitmap image data) using the normal program. Accordingly, when the electronic watermark is embedded into the raw image data, it is necessary to develop an original embedding program for the electronic watermark, and it is costly.